Today I decided I’d try once again to sort out our washing machine. I’ve tried several times before, without succeeding. According to the rather scant Hotpoint support, on YouTube, 90% of issues are due to the filter getting blocked.
I’ve attended to this filter several times. It’s occasionally had a little crap in it. And I really mean a very little. But mostly it’s been pretty clean and empty, i.e. free of any serious obstructions. Never enough to have caused the blockage and drainage issues we’ve faced.
The most recent and worst of these was when it stopped draining altogether. Meaning that we had to empty the drum using a measuring jug. A faintly unpleasant smell gradually but inexorably turned to a truly rank odour!
Intuition and common sense suggested that as the filter was pretty clean and totally not blocked, then logically the blockage must, surely, be in the drainage hose?
So I took the hose off – much easier said than done! – and stuck a trombone cleaner down it. Alas, the ‘bone unblocker isn’t as long as the hose, so I had to attack it from both ends.
After this, I rigged the pipe so it was on a constant downwards gradient, and started running hot water through it. After about five or six flushes, the stinking opaque effluence had turned, if not into wine, at least into clear clean water!
After re-assembling the washer, and clipping the hose back in place, I ran a cleaning cycle with some soda crystals added to the drum. It was then that another recurrent fault reared it’s ugly head: the machine never reaches the end of any programme.
Not sure why, exactly, but whatever program we run, the machine always ‘hangs’ on one minute remaining… forever!
To finish any program off, requires turning the entire machine off, and restarting it set to a rinse ‘n’ spin (which in turn won’t actually finish!). Bit of a palaver. And a lot of a pain!
But not having to bail out stinking dirty water is a tremendous improvement! Compared to which having to fudge finishing wash and rinse cycles is but a minor issue.
I’m not a slick blogger or YouTuber, and very rarely if ever document these things thoroughly, let alone well! But the few pics here do give an idea of just how dull a job this is.
That said, and despite the as yet unresolved ‘won’t finish’ fault, improving the situation does come with a certain pay off.
It’d be great if we could fix the ‘one minute remaining’ issue. And we do also need a new front door seal, as well. But, little by little, we’re getting somewhere.